On July 15, 2020 Patently Apple posted a report titled "Apple has won a Landmark Court Case in Europe today with the Court ruling that Ireland did not give Apple a Tax Advantage" On July 16 we followed up with a report titled "Within 24 Hours of Losing her back-tax case against Apple, EU Commissioner Vestager sent out a new threat over Siri." The timing of the EU's follow-up attack against Apple was seen as a vindictive act on behalf of Margrethe Vestager for losing a landmark tax case.  

So it's no surprise that the EU antitrust enforcers have claimed a court made legal errors when it scrapped their order for iPhone maker Apple to pay 13 billion euros ($15.7 billion) in Irish back taxes, in a filing to have the verdict overturned.

Reuters reports that "The stakes are high for the European Commission in its crackdown against what it sees as aggressive tax planning by multinationals.

The Commission said in a filing in the Official Journal: 'The General Court’s failure to properly consider the structure and content of the decision and the explanations in the Commission’s written submissions on the functions performed by the head offices and the Irish branches is a breach of procedure.'  

The EU competition enforcer added: 'The General Court’s subsequent acknowledgement... that the decision examines the functions performed by the Irish branches in justifying the attribution of the Apple IP licenses to them constitutes contradictory reasoning, which amounts to a failure to state reasons.'"

The CJEU will hold a hearing on the case in the coming months. For more, read the full Reuters report.